Farm safety and mental health program to fill the gap in N.B.

It would be an understatement to say Bill Duivenvoorden was scared when his cabless tractor flipped on top of him 30 years ago. 

"I basically did a wheelie going up the hill and she went, I'm not sure what the polite term is for this, but arse-over-teakettle and I was underneath," he said.

The Belledune-area beef farmer may be in good spirits about the accident now, but in the moment he said he was fighting for his life. 

"You know, at the time you do what you have to do to survive," he said. 

Duivenvoorden was stuck for about an hour before help arrived to get him out. He said he was sprayed with fuel until the tank had emptied and his arm was jammed underneath the fender.

"For the longest time, there was no movement, no feeling, no nothing," he said about his arm. 

Duivenvoorden describes himself feeling like a "ragdoll" during the year it took to recover from the accident, but still, he counts himself lucky to be around to tell the tale. 

According to the Agricultural Alliance of New Brunswick, too many farmers have stories about injuries that happen on the job. 

"There have been a number of accidents over the years on farms. It's very dangerous work," said Anna Belliveau, CEO of the alliance. "There's lots of large equipment and sometimes, you know, the training is minimal."

With that in mind, the alliance is launching an initiative in the new year that aims to make farms a safer workplace. It's in partnership with the National Farmers Union in New Brunswick and Really Local Harvest, a farm co-operative.

What exactly the program will look like is unknown at this time, but Belliveau said it will focus on education and could include on-farm visits as well as webinars about various agriculture-safety topics.

New Brunswick could be the only province in Canada to not currently have a farm safety program, according to Belliveau. She said the group has been discussing the idea for years but only recently was able to access proper funding.  

It's now accepting applications for someone to design and lead the initiative.

Duivenvoorden said any additional safety education will benefit the agriculture community, even farmers who were born and raised on a farm. 

"It's easy to get complacent," he said. "You do the same routine each and every day. After a while you kind of say, 'Oh, that's nothing,' but lo and behold, it turns around and bites you."

53 farming-related accidents in 2021

Canada's farming industry has a history of serious accidents and fatalities. Although it's improved in recent years, the number of incidents remains significant. 

From 1990 to 2001, the Canadian Agricultural Safety Association reports an average of 116 people died each year due to an agriculture-related accident. From 2002 to 2012, that dropped to 85.

WorkSafeNB spokesperson Beverly Stears said one New Brunswicker died each year between 2016 and 2019 because of a farming accident. 

She said there were 53 non-fatal farming-related accidents in 2021, although those workers needed to take time off to recover from their injuries. According to Stears, that is roughly the average number of annual farming-related accidents in the province since 2013. It dipped to a low of 42 in 2020 and hit a high of 79 in 2019. 

The Agricultural Alliance of New Brunswick estimates there are more than 6,000 people working directly in the agriculture sector.

1 in 4 farmers feel their life is not worth living

Belliveau said the new program will also focus on improving the mental health of New Brunswick farmers. Again, what exactly that will look like will be up to the individual hired to design and lead the initiative, but Belliveau said there is a clear demand for support. 

Research released in June by the University of Guelph reveals that Canadian farmers have higher rates of stress, anxiety, and depression than the national average. It also found one in four farmers don't think their life is worth living, wished they were dead or had thought about taking their own life in the past year. 

Andria Jones-Bitton, a professor in the Department of Population Medicine at the Ontario Veterinary College, led a national survey of 1,200 Canadian farmers. She said there are a number of factors that contribute to poor mental health in the farming community, like more frequent severe weather events, labour shortages, supply chain issues, and succession planning.

"We're also getting increasing reports of what we're calling public scrutiny or anti-agriculture statements that sort of demean farmers' sense of meaning and purpose," she said. 

Having agriculture-specific mental health services is incredibly important to farmers, according to Jones-Bitton. She said farmers are very wary of reaching out for help, particularly when the person on the other end doesn't have a solid understanding of agriculture. 

"Some of our participants shared stories where they've gone to speak to their family doctor about mental health struggles and they have received well-intended advice to take two weeks off of work, but that's just not possible for most of our farmers," she said.

"Participants have said what's the point in reaching out if they're not going to understand my lifestyle, my reality?"

Belliveau said she feels the new program will be well-received by the agricultural community.

"We can make a great program, but it's the farmers that have to access it and I think from what I've heard through meetings that most of them are ready to access that help," she said. 

Pairing farm safety with mental health is a natural fit for the new program, according to Belliveau. 

"The two are connected," she said. "Because it's all safety, right?"